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goldeneyedgirl · 5 months

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TwiFicMas23 Day 1: lead & follow (Jessamine/Mary-Alice)

Another year, another round of Ficmas!

We'll open this year with a fic that I started for Pride and just couldn't get right - I think the end section will be reworked before it's archived on AO3.

So this was kind of a thought experiment about how STL would have gone for Jessamine and Alice; how things went differently, how different choices were made, and what that looked like.

I hope you enjoy it!

lead & follow.

Open my chest and colour my spine I'm giving you all Swallow my breath And take what is mine

(Of Monsters & Men)

---

Like everything that has ever happened to one Miss Jessamine Whitlock, formerly of San Antonio, everything changes because of one small detail. One details that is so easily dismissed and forgotten, never something that seems like it’s meant to become something bigger or even slightly important in the long run.

And that's how it begins.

Jessamine finds her in a swampy clearing somewhere in Mississippi - it’s not important where, and Jessamine doesn’t care. She’s just standing there, staring off into space; with bright red eyes, and the kind of glow to her that only newborns have, half-covered in mud.

Experience has told her that no good comes from a solitary newborn - and there are no others around them, not that Jessamine can sense.

So she goes to take the newborn’s head off.

At least, that’s the plan.

Instead, the first blow has the newborn cowering, not even trying to fight back; her terrified face bisected by a crack, her thin hands holding it together as it heals. When Jessamine gets closer, the newborn lets out a whine and shuffles backward to nestle at the foot of a tree, surrounded by bushes and undergrowth.

(Her eyes are so big, it almost looks like they take up her entire face. The kind of eyes someone could drown in. Her black hair, uneven and wild, is pasted down to her face with a mixture of dried blood - her own - and mud. She is astoundingly pretty - if uncomfortably thin - which is probably the reason she was turned… if her change was intentional.)

She doesn’t look like much more than a child. But Jessamine’s known Immortal Children, and their aggression, their lure, is something that this girl doesn’t have. She’s small, but she’s above the legal age.

So she decides to take one Mary-Alice (the name scrawled on the back of her garment, the surname blurred out and indecipherable) back to Maria.

If she’s a spy, she’ll be tortured for information and destroyed. If she’s a foundling, she’s another body on the battlefield. Either way, Maria gets something out of Jessamine bringing her back to Monterrey.

So she does.

—

Forks is turning out to be memorable.

That sounds stupid. Vampire memories are good enough that, by definition, all places are memorable. Except after decades of moving every five years from one large, remote house in a small town to another large, remote house in a small town, it all blurs together. Carlisle works in a hospital, Esme does charity work, and the rest of them go to school - dented lockers, the old-soup smell of the cafeteria, and computers that only work fifty percent of the time.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It was like statis, in some ways, because it was always the same. Hell, in some of those underfunded shithole public schools, they were even the same textbooks a decade apart.

That’s why they were allowed to stay in Alaska for the full decade - after a round in Juneau playing the part. They had to earn their retreat into the lodge outside of the Denali National Park.

(Well, the screaming argument that she had with Rosalie might have indicated to Carlisle and Esme that they were all burnt out with keeping up the act. It hadn’t been one of her finest moments, but Rosalie had insisted on using her actual full name at their last three schools and Jess had put her foot down in Juneau. They were inviting trouble with the internet becoming more and more accessible. She’d won that argument, which was rare enough that it was notable, and they’d attended school as Rose and Jess Platt. It was more than fifteen years ago, and she wasn’t entirely certain Rosalie had forgiven her yet.)

It had been nice. Nice to exist as who she was, and not have to remember all the details that went along with their cover story; not to have to second guess everything she said or did or wore because she was supposed to be an ordinary teenage girl. Nice to be able to venture into the woods for days on end and not have to be anywhere. Nice to run bare foot through the snow, because that was a feeling she still savoured as a novelty more than sixty years later.

And then Carlisle had taken them to Forks, and pushed them back onto centre stage; the maladjusted Cullens (and Hales, again. She is fighting a losing battle over that.)

(She’s getting too old for this.)

She wasn’t expecting Forks to be anything. Just another black pin on the map in her study of all the places they’ve found themselves in - there’s a red pin in Monterrey for obvious reasons. There’s a silver one in Nebraska, the place where the Cullens found her (not her most dignified moment, honestly.)

There’s a silver one in Mississippi too. One that she worries at, takes out and puts back in, because she hates that she’s so damn obvious. That she’s giving away her secrets - especially the secrets that she refuses to confess to herself half of the time. But she’s on a new kick, a new lifestyle of being honest with herself and with others. That rewriting history does no one any favours, so it’s better just to be straight forward and tell the truth.

(Eventually she’ll feel at home as this new person, this honest girl who owns her failures and her weaknesses. It’s been sixty years, it’ll stick soon.)

She digresses.

Forks… well, Edward and Bella certainly made it distinctive.

She wasn’t going to lie and say that it didn’t feel good to fight again, to destroy. That James went down realising he made a terrible mistake and picked the wrong fight on the wrong day, and that she was very thorough, and took great pride in her work. That Jessamine Whitlock had a reputation to uphold. She likens it to stretching out muscles that have been in recline too long - a runner getting back into training after sitting out of the race.

(She might have been too enthusiastic, because Emmett was kind of slack jawed when James was finally ash. But it’s good to know that she’s still got it - that sixty years of domesticity hasn’t dulled her too much.)

Jess has zero idea of where Edward and Bella are going to end up - probably with Bella dead, if she’s honest. (If Esme hadn’t intervened, she and Rose would have already dealt with Bella and probably Chief Swan at the same time. But she just cannot go against Esme’s politely-worded requests. No one is murdering the Chief of Police and his daughter. She just made it sound so reasonable.) With all the moving parts, with Edward and his hang-ups, and Bella’s impressive ability to attract trouble, she cannot see this having a happy ending. And really, however this pans out, Bella is going to lose her life.

But she keeps her thoughts to herself.

Victoria is still in the wind and, despite Carlisle’s faith in the goodness of people, Jess knows that without sufficient motivation - like having a debilitating gift that cripples you emotionally to the point of physical pain if you hunt humans - there is no meaningful chance that Laurent will remain a vegetarian with the Denali clan. They’re living on borrowed time.

But for all her bitching, at least Bella and Edward had made this more interesting than another mediocre high school eduction.

Speaking of which, her current class is coming to an end, and she has the overwhelming urge to stretch. The others don’t get that urge like she does, and Carlisle blames it on their human lifestyle. That Jess had the opportunity to run and fight and move on a scale none of the Cullens have really ever had. The others find it odd that she paces, stretches, twists and turns when they are content simply sitting or standing.

Some days she just runs loops up to Canada and back down to Forks, to burn the energy and the itch. Edward might join her for a couple, Emmett too, but no one likes to run as much as she does. No one else feels like instinct to move like Jess.

The bell rings, and she’s quick to sweep her books into her bag. Maybe she’ll ask Rose to do her homework for her, and go running tonight. Go running and hunting, and tell Carlisle she’s keeping an eye for Victoria so no one looks at her like she’s going feral again. Maybe even wear shoes and one of those fancy outdoor jackets that Esme buys her, to help her look the part even when she’s running faster than the human eye in the depths of the wilderness, with blood on her face.

“Jess?”

She jerks to the side - not surprised, really, but having anyone address her is unexpected. She and Rose are not known for their warm personalities.

But Angela Weber is one of the few classmates that she tolerates. Mostly because Angela is polite, respects boundaries, and doesn’t ask stupid questions. Jessica Stanley, who is hovering nearby, is lower on Jess’s list of ‘people she should tolerate’, mostly because of the sheer amount of questions Jessica likes to ask.

Which is possibly why she’s keeping her distance.

(She blames Rose, honestly, that they’re approaching her at all - she’d been practicing braids in Jess’s hair that morning and she’d left them in for school. Apparently it made her look friendly enough to talk to.)

“Hmm?”

“It’s about Rosalie’s car…”

Angela has her full attention immediately; nothing causes a Rosalie Hale meltdown quite like the great-unwashed interfering with one of her cars. There had been an incident about a month after they started at Forks High, and whilst Rosalie had been contained quickly, it wasn’t forgotten by the student body.

“There's some junkie girl sitting on it,” Jessica announces and Angela winces at her friend’s bluntness.

Jess groans, and shoulders her bag, pushing past both girls without acknowledging them. This was going to be bad, and she was sure Angela would overlook her rudeness if it meant beating Rosalie out to the parking lot and removing whatever poor soul had a death wish by touching the BMW.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

—

Mary-Alice is an enigma.

Maria is equal parts exasperated and fascinated by her.

She claims to have no memories before waking up in the woods.

She doesn’t know her maker. She doesn’t remember being human or how old she is or where she is from. The only reason she knows her name is because it was written on her garment and Jessamine gave it back to her. She tells them all of that the second they get back to camp.

Maria doesn’t believe her. Not that it matters, because whatever her answer was, Maria has a very specific process for foundlings brought to her in Monterrey.

Maybe Jessamine should have warned the poor girl.

She’s mostly confused by the torture; it’s light, for Maria - the cracking and removal of a limb or two has the girl telling them everything. She sobs enough that venom gathers under her eyes and clings to her eyelashes. When Maria finally decides to release her, Mary-Alice doesn’t lash out like others before her have; instead, she goes over to the corner of the room to reattach her arm, to realign the joints in her legs, and shakes like a leaf when Jessamine approaches her, flinching away.

But Jessamine has to put her away, and nothing stops her from hauling Mary-Alice to her feet, her hand clamped around her good arm so she doesn’t try to run. She wouldn’t be the first.

The rolling horror of her emotions twists Jessamine’s stomach and makes her tighten her grip out of resentment as she escorts her to the barn with the rest of the newborns. She almost pities the little creature, still healing - her ankle is still knitting back to her leg, her limp like a little skip - and being thrown into the barn. But what goes on in there after dawn is a law unto itself, and something that Maria has never gotten involved in.

(Mary-Alice isn’t the first to be fed into the maw of the south, and she won’t be the last.)

Which is why it’s so fucking annoying that Jessamine can’t get the memory of her wide, venom-streaked eyes out of her head, even once she and Maria have retired to the house.

The next evening, Mary-Alice is quiet. She feels distant - that will become her trademark. That her emotions are as slight and ephemeral as her build. That for a long time, Jessamine will have to touch her to get a decent read on what she feels.

And after a while, even that yields nothing.

It doesn’t matter, though, because she settles well into training. Maria had named her as canon fodder - someone they’d lose early on, since she was evidently prone to hysterics and seemed too confused and innocent to really grasp what she was now a part of.

But… she’s fast and she’s a quick learner; a talented fighter. She catches on faster than Jessamine’s seen before; absolutely ruthless and precise. Her size is an asset, and does not reflect her strength. It’s been a while since Jessamine has been surprised by a newborn in training; she and Maria can measure up a soldier well enough by now. Mary-Alice, however, surprises both of them.

She’ll do nicely.

And she lives. One battle, two, six, twelve. She comes back from them all with insignificant injuries and nothing to report. Another success story for the Lady of Monterrey, and her unbeatable army.

Jessamine just tries to not to notice how haunted those big eyes have become, so quickly. How quiet and small she makes herself.

It's just how things are in the south.

She’d best get used to it.

—

With the imminent arrival of another patented Rosalie meltdown, Jess is cursing a lot of things - of course her class today is in H block at the back of the school. Of course today is the day the goddamn middle schoolers are using the library, and one of the sports teams is packing for a game. There are too many people crammed into the hallway, and Rosalie’s temper is the only thing distracting Jess from how good everyone smells.

She manages to intercept Edward, helping Bella navigate the corridors in that unwieldy cast, to warn him of their predicament and to hopefully distract Rose long enough for Jess to intervene and banish whomever thought it was a good idea to touch Rosalie Hale’s car. Edward looks irritated - mostly at Rose, but that’s just an ordinary Wednesday - and agrees that this needs to be handled fast and efficiently. Leave Emmett to be the one to manage Rose.

But of course, as they push through the crowds, her bag - the beat-up army-surplus messenger bag that Emmett gave her back in the 90s as a punchline to a joke, dotted with anti-war patches Emmett hunts for on eBay - decides to break, the buckle snapping up to hit her in the head and sending her shit tumbling to the floor.

She’s going to murder someone, but at least Carlisle will be pleased it wasn’t because she was thirsty, but because she was continually inconvenienced. Waving Edward and Bella on, she stops to scoop up her detritus - pens and pencils, her notes, her phone, all scattered along the floor - as other students ignore her and keep moving forward.

“You think they’ll call the cops?”

“She’s definitely a junkie. Mom says there’s a real problem out at the Res, and that Swan won’t do anything about it because he’s all buddy-buddy with a bunch of them.”

“She’s pretty obviously white, Ashley.”

“They’re probably selling shit to her.”

“Don’t be such a fucking racist."

“Banner went out to talk to her, and she says she’s waiting for someone. Said she knows the Cullens.”

“She looks like a middle-schooler.”

The gossip around her, as she shovels papers and books and pens back into her bag - fixable, but irritating - seems to prick at her, and she sets it aside long enough to tie the broken strap together. She’s probably lost her chance at beating Ro…

Said she knows the Cullens.

She looks like a middle-schooler.

That makes her pause. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Immortal Children don’t live very long, with the Laws. And most people won’t change anyone who isn’t definitively and absolutely old enough. No one wants to be the one that creates an ambiguously young newborn in case it all goes to shit.

Maybe there’s always been a little shard of hope tucked behind her heart.

There’s only been one girl she’s known, of all the newborns and nomads and friends of Carlisle’s over the years, that could pass for being a ‘junkie middle-schooler.’

One girl who made her a promise a long time ago.

(It might have been sixty years, but she never stopped having faith in those parting words.)

—

Time passes, newborns fall in battle, or they live to see the year pass by until summer comes and the pyres are built. And slowly but steadily, Jessamine feeds each piece and part of those newborns into the fire whether they are body parts left behind on the battlefield, or Jessamine takes off their heads herself.

Mary-Alice isn’t amongst that number. No, she survives each battle, and is lucky and fast enough that Maria shrugs and leaves it up to Jessamine whether Mary-Alice gets to live or die.

So, she lives.

Jessamine tells herself that it’s because no one expects much from her on the battlefield, so she’s the perfect cuckoo in the nest. The skinny kid with the big eyes that can take down men three times her size before they even realise they’ve lost.

She convinces herself of that for a long time. That her interest in Mary-Alice is merely academic, strategic, and nothing more. Even when she’s unceremoniously ejected from Maria’s bed - a long time coming, and not something she’s that unhappy about - she’s still convinced Mary-Alice is just another warm body for the army. One of the few that gets to live past their newborn year - like Dante and Lily and Javier. She has a purpose. Jessamine Whitlock is not one for sentiment, and not one for indulgences. If Mary-Alice wasn’t useful, she wouldn’t have been given a stay of execution.

And for a while, that’s how they stay. A soldier and a major. Training and hunting and recruiting. Mary-Alice proves useful at map-drawing and recruiting, even if she is entirely illiterate and far too sympathetic to potential recruits. Her answers to Jessamine are always short, deeply respectful, and unemotional - she’s never told a lie, even fumbled the details, in the entire time that Jessamine’s known her.

Maria likes that Mary-Alice has no human memories; thinks it makes her more efficient and effective. She wonders about ways to wipe memories of the newborns as a blanket policy; sever them from their humanity entirely. Peter and Jessamine manage to talk her out of that; there’s already a roughly thirty percent chance of a newborn changing wrong and having to be destroyed on the spot. It’s just making their jobs harder, to try and find that sweet spot between utility and amnesia every single time. It leaves them weak, without a full army, if it all goes wrong at the same time.

(And maybe Jessamine sees the confused, sad look on Mary-Alice's face when she’s listening to a conversation the most recent batch of newborns have - about weddings and families and birthdays and all those little things that make up humans and newborns often want to hold tight to, at least for a little while. But all it tells her is that Mary-Alice might be useful the way she is, but she’s hardly content with her lot in life.)

It takes over a decade for Jessamine to admit to herself that Mary-Alice isn’t there just for utility - that she wants more. Those big red eyes that feel like they see too much; the odd little spells she has where she stares off into space. The very few but almost charmingly unexpected questions. The shape and movement of her thin body underneath oversized clothes…

She wants more. She wants Mary-Alice.

(It’s been a while. There were a couple of newborns after Maria, easily caught and easily forgotten - Peter’s fine with being the one that ends Jessamine’s lovers during the summer, because it’s too much for her to deal with and they learned that the hard way. She kept to herself after that, bored and irritable with the last few batches.)

The realisation is one that feels like she’s always known it but also like she’s been struck by lightning. It’s no easier to admit to herself in the privacy of her own mind than it is to put the words into the world, but it’s always been there, simmering: that Mary-Alice was something, a moment of potential that she just had to be ready to take.

Jessamine has never been patient when she makes a decision; and it’s not like Mary-Alice is going anywhere.

It’s as simple as cornering her in the house before dawn; of a hand on Mary-Alice’s cheek and a kiss that is taken more than offered. An understanding that is exchanged in a glance.

The room Maria gave Jessamine is narrow, with an ancient, rotting day bed and a hay mattress. The mattress is sunken in the middle, and she snapped the legs off the bed years ago, to make it more useable. There’s a desk that barely stands, piled with her books and ragged maps and a few bits of discarded clothing.

It’s not a room she’s spent a lot of time in - a space used for killing time more than as a sanctuary.

Mary-Alice pauses to consider the room for a second; that’s all Jessamine gives her before there is another kiss, deep and lingering, and she can taste Mary-Alice’s venom - a lemon-sugar tang that makes her groan.

(Jessamine makes it clear what she wants from Mary-Alice that first night. Both of them stripped and on that daybed; Mary-Alice has less scars, just a dusting. She’s still young. She’s just as tiny as Jessamine envisaged, her ribs leaving shadows on her skin, the soft swell of her breasts, the jutting bones of her hips… Jessamine doesn’t want to admit that she’s a daydream, a doll wrought just for her, because that makes this a complete disaster. She’s already ragged with emotion in this place, the last thing she needs to do is add in her own goddamn feelings.)

Mary-Alice has always been a good learner, a quick one, and Jessamine would be pleased with how willing she is if life didn’t feel like she was being hollowed out and left to rot most days. But there is some satisfaction in what they have, in being able to sink into each other. She knows every scar and freckle on Mary-Alice’s body, knows exactly how she moves, how she’s put together. It’s a feast and some days she wonders if those days lying sprawled naked on the hay mattress are what truly sustains her.

(Maria catches them together one afternoon and lets out a bark of laughter. “You really are trying to destroy that girl,” she informs Jessamine, clearly entertained by what she’s found. That comment, what Maria saw in them that day, eats away at Jessamine slowly but surely. She does nothing with it, but it just sits in her mind to rot and it makes her worse. It makes everything worse.)

But somehow, she keeps her. Mary-Alice doesn’t leave, Jessamine doesn’t send her away, and they both ignore the rot.

And maybe Jessamine feels safe enough to talk to Mary-Alice - to Alice. Really talk, like she hasn’t been able to in… a very long time. She whispers little things in her ear, asks her what she thinks, tells her things she’d rather never speak aloud.

Alice is a good listener, but not much of a talker. She makes reassuring sounds, plays with Jessamine’s hair, and never really has a definitive opinion about complicated things. She doesn’t confide in Jessamine the same; there are no whispered confessions, no hushed fears or worries. It hurts because Jessamine is cracking herself wide open for Alice, and getting nothing in return.

(It hurts because Jessamine knows she doesn’t deserve any part of what she expects, and Alice is right not to tell her a damn thing.)

“It must be nice not to have secrets,” Jessamine says pointedly to her one day, lying together; fucking came before dealing with the bites and wounds from the last battle and Alice’s mouth is on the bite around her bony arm, licking away foreign venom so it will knit again. She lets out a garbled noise when Jessamine says that.

“What makes you think that?” Alice asks, looking curious. Blank, curious, pissed off - those were the sole emotions Alice was capable of demonstrating. Her physical emotions were no more telling, and sometimes Jessamine wondered if that’s just who Miss Mary-Alice was, or if that’s what the South had done to her.

“You never have anything to tell me,” Jessamine replied, almost sulkily. Alice shrugs and lies straight, looking at her frankly.

“I’ve never known anything but you and life here,” Alice says in that even, flat voice she always uses. “That’s all I have; any hopes or dreams or beliefs or regrets I ever had, I left behind when I was changed. I think you really need those things to have secrets, Jessamine.”

She’s not wrong, but Jessamine is admittedly jealous that Alice won’t entrust some kind of something to her; to tuck a secret into Jessamine’s greedy palms. But it also must be nice not to feel like you’re on the edge of a knife, about to fall into the abyss. Most of the time, Jessamine feels like she’s about to implode from everything. That she’s stretched taunt, and something has to give.

And Alice is just there, steady as she goes.

It must be nice.

(It’ll be much, much later - too late - when Jessamine finally realises how grotesque and nightmarish Alice’s life was. Is. How she had handed Jessamine what she truly wanted, that intimacy of her truth - completely hopeless, with no expectation or knowledge of anything better than what she had. And Jessamine had missed it entirely.)

—

“I don’t care who the fuck she is, I’m going to kill her,” Rosalie announces through clenched teeth, sending a few horrified freshman skittering out of her way like rabbits as Jess finally finds her family. She’d given up beating Rosalie to the car park thanks to the fucking ridiculous layout of this stupid school and opted to just try and diffuse the situation at the source.

“How did she find us here?” Emmett wonders, looking downright confused. “Why not go straight to the house? Esme would love having someone show up to visit.”

“Scent, probably. No other way to track us down if they were coming from the South-East,” Edward says under his breath, so no passersby can hear anything odd. “Do we have any idea of who it is?”

“Jessica was saying she had dark hair,” Bella says meekly, withering under Rose’s scornful glance.

“That doesn’t narrow it much,” Emmett has his arm over Rosalie’s shoulders, probably holding her in place. Even with Jess’s gift, Rose’s rage is hot and wild, and Emmett is probably the only thing keeping her in check. “Mary, maybe?”

“Mary hasn’t left California in forty years; and she’s taller than Jess,” Edward corrects. “Everyone’s focusing on how small this girl is.”

“At least it isn’t Jane,” Emmett shrugs. “We’d have known about that pretty fast.”

It’s been decades since they met with the Volturi as ‘honored guests’ of Aro, and none of them held that visit fondly. Esme had quietly admitted later that the visit to Volterra had taken the shine off Italy entirely.

Jess nods along, trying to focus on muting Rosalie’s anger, and not to think too much. She feels oddly sick at the possibilities in front of them. She feels stupid for putting the pieces together in her mind in a very-certain way. (She promised.) She’s… hopeful, but sick with the possibility she’s wrong and she’s got her hopes up for nothing.

“It’s not Maria, Jess.” Edward sounds like he’s trying very hard to be reassuring. “You know Maria, and she wouldn’t be this brazen.”

It’s both reassuring and embarrassing that Edward would jump to that conclusion: that Maria’s sudden appearance would be at the front of Jess’s mind when it didn’t even occur to her that Maria might be the sitting pretty on Rose’s BMW (fuck, she really does have a type).

(Also, Maria would not be sitting on the BMW looking homeless. The last time Charlotte and Peter ran into Maria, she was apparently wearing Versace and driving a Lexus - a stolen Lexus, without any kind of license, but the woman had very particular taste.)

Jess can’t think of other possibilities at that moment. She doesn’t want Edward to know because… whatever the outcome is, she doesn’t want Edward to look at her in sympathy. She might be trying out this whole ‘honest and transparent’ lifestyle but there are some things that are too raw, too much of a condemnation of her, to think about.

So she just nods, hands tight on the strap of her bag and wondering what she’s really hoping for.

(It’s been more than sixty fucking years. Hope is a dead thing that’s rotted back into the ground, brittle bones ground to dust. Some promises are made to be broken, and it’s about time that she made peace with that.)

—

In the end, she goes with Peter.

Or rather, Peter shows up and grabs her arm and tells her to fucking run.

(The long story is that for a very long time, she hates Peter. More than she hates Charlotte, even. She hates him for leaving her to the never-ending abyss of the wars, for taking away the steadiest and kindest thing she ever had. She doesn’t want to kill him so much as she wants to beat the shit out of him and scream at him for letting her down. She tells Alice that once, her voice shaking, and Alice had stroked her cheek. “I think Peter will surprise you. And I think when he does, you should take what he offers.” Jessamine scoffed because she doesn’t expect to see him again - he’s already probably dead, Charlotte too.)

So she turns and runs. She doesn’t even look behind her, doesn’t think about the stuff she’s leaving behind, doesn’t think about how he’s still alive, where Charlotte is, or even where they are going.

They just run. It’s a blur of dust and haze and terror trapped inside her that they will be caught and she’ll get the one person she’s always trusted, always relied upon to fix things, killed.

At the Arizona border, they slow down and maybe Jess grabs Peter and hugs him so tight she probably cracks something and she sobs so hard she’s wheezing. Her great escape from the Southern Wars and from Maria of Monterrey ends not with a celebration, of laughter and joy, but with both of them sitting in the dirt, Jess shaking and crying, with Peter trying to soothe her, his arms tight around her.

That’s how Charlotte finds them, and later Jess is embarrassed and humbled by Charlotte’s compassion, her acceptance, and her keen relief that they both made it out in one piece. Charlotte’s a better person than Jessamine, but they already knew that.

For a while, she feels like spun glass - impossibly fragile and distant from all that goes on around her. Time lacks meaning, and she’s not sure how many days pass after Arizona. Peter and Charlotte are gentle with her, and Charlotte is quick to remind her that it takes all of them a while to realize that there is something outside of that ugly bubble of the Wars; that what they lived through is just the smallest view of the world.

Jess just needs to take a breathe and let time work its magic, Charlotte promises. It will be okay.

Except, it’s six states and two months later that she feels enough like herself again that her brain starts working, that she starts having thoughts beyond the moment, and she immediately thinks of Alice.

Alice. Alice whom she left behind and never thought of. Alice who probably waited for Jess in her room - their room - in the mansion, and Jess never showed up.

Alice, who is still in Monterrey with Maria alone to pay the price of Jess’s abandonment. That’s the realization that makes her vomit up the meal she ate only a few hours earlier. Alice alone, paying for Jessamine’s sins and selfishness.

(Maria was right. She really did want to destroy Alice.)

Peter is kind but unflinching when he deciphers her distress. If Jessamine was that close to Alice, Maria probably tortured the shit out of her for answers, and then destroyed her. If going back was a possibility - and it really, really isn’t - she wouldn’t be alive to save.

It says a lot about the place they’ve all come from that the idea Alice is dead and gone is immensely reassuring, that Alice is somewhere soft and quiet now, where nothing can get her.

Except…

The last night, the last battle, lingers in her head and she remembers giving Alice and the others their orders and Alice meeting her gaze and replying, “I’ll follow where you lead.”

Those words are probably meaningless; Alice always followed orders and acknowledged them to set a standard for the newborns. Her confidence and certainty in Jessamine and Maria’s leadership set a tone that made the newborns fall into line with relative ease.

Except they aren’t; they’re ominous and heavy and loaded… maybe even something to hold tight to, something to tuck away and hope for.

Alice is fast and she’s a quick learner; a talented fighter. She catches on faster than Jessamine’s seen before; absolutely ruthless and precise. Her size is an asset and does not reflect her strength. She’s been a reliable fighter for Maria for decades, and she’s never told a lie. Without Jessamine, Maria’s ability to wield a newborn army is crippled; it would be foolish to destroy one of her longest-serving soldiers when she’s already lost Jessamine. And Maria is no fool…

…Maybe.

(A little bit of hope is a powerful thing.)

—

The journey to the parking lot feels like the path to execution, and Jess is intimately aware of the fact that either way, her family is probably going to know more than she wants them to.

There are students clustered around the parking lot, talking and whispering, and enjoying the Cullens being a spectacle again. Perhaps even hoping for a Rosalie smack-down because in small towns, the good gossip is treasured.

(Emmett might look like he’s casually walking with Rosalie, but she’s clamped at his side, and he’s whispering sweet nothings in her ear to diffuse the situation. Cars can be fixed and some people are stupid, babe. Don’t let anyone know they got to you.)

And then they are there, staring at Rose’s pristine car, and it takes Jess a moment to realise what she’s seeing.

She sits on the top of the SUV cross-legged, and she probably looks bored to everyone else. Just waiting for the Cullens to show up.

(Hope is a wild thing in her chest, somehow a million times more alive and wild now that Jess is faced with what she was secretly holding on for, that tiny flickering flame that she’s protected but never acknowledged since the day Peter declared her most likely dead finally burning free.)

To Jess, she looks exhausted. Wrung out and brittle, like she’s waiting for her execution.

But she’s here. And she’s alive.

Her hair is pulled into two very small pigtails on the top of her head with plastic clips, and somewhere she’s gotten ahold of glitter eyeshadow that is smeared liberally over both her eyelids. She’s wearing a frankly rancid cat-ear hoodie that looks like it was once a child’s, and some ragged capris, with a beat-up messenger bag beside her. Both of her skinny wrists are layered with beaded bracelets that definitely once belonged to a child.

The effect is jarring - childish and garish - but it is also somehow the most Alice. That this is exactly who she is - worn out, beaten-up, but still very much herself. It feels like the first time Jess has actually seen her for herself and it’s exactly how Jess always assumed Alice looked.

“Jess?” Edward’s looking at her with a confused expression, but she’s not listening anymore. It’s like sixty years of trauma all knotted and tangled up inside of her has come loose and she can finally relax. That she’s finally putting everything together and maybe it will be okay now.

She strides over to the car, past the whispering students wondering how the Cullens know this weird barefoot girl and what Jess Hale is going to do, and right up to the SUV. For a second, they stare at each other before Jess drops her bag to the ground and climbs up onto the roof, their gazes never breaking.

Alice stares back at her, her expression not changing at all; her eyes just tracking her movement. There’s nothing there, no emotion or reaction. Just the flat gaze of someone used to being hunted.

And Jess kisses her.

She clasps Alice’s face in her hands and kisses her for the first time in more than sixty years, an apology and a celebration that Alice is here and she’s alive and they found each other.

Jess knows that behind her, the population of Forks High is gaping and whispering and judging - she can hear a few wolf-whistles, she’s sure that admin is already calling Carlisle and Esme to come in for a meeting with the guidance counselor, and that there will be a slur written on the front of her locker in the morning.

Small towns are all the same.

She knows that the penny finally dropped for Emmett and Rose (though she suspects that Emmett already guessed, after that weird speech he gave her back in ’79 about how it’s cool that he likes bears and she likes bears too and that everyone can like what they like, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. She originally assumed it was because Carlisle and Esme were paying closer attention to the local wildlife and sustainability, but apparently it was really about her being gay. Metaphor was never his strong suit.)

Rosalie will be rolling her eyes that Jess had to be so dramatic and couldn’t do this privately.

She knows that Edward is going to have another spiritual crisis that involves too many dirges on the piano, a lot of whining at Carlisle, and somehow making the fact that Jess is gay all about his perpetual teenage-boy pain and hypocritical beliefs.

She doesn’t care that everyone is going to talk about her right up until the Cullens move away; that she’s going to be the ‘gay Cullen girl’ now, and made a whole lot of trouble for the family. She doesn’t care that Esme’s probably going to give her a sweet but awkward speech about how loved and accepted she is, and how she could have told them at any time.

It’s honestly going to suck for a few weeks, after this stunt.

But she doesn’t regret it. She doesn’t regret it because Alice is there and the familiar lemon-sugar tang of her venom hasn’t changed, and Alice doesn’t shove her away. And that’s halfway to everything being perfect.

When Jess pulls back, Alice squeezes her eyes shut. “I-I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” are the first words Alice speaks to her, quiet and nervous, and Jess hates so much that Alice seems so resigned, so small and tired.

Their good times might have been brief, a little flash in their fucked up, messy history, but that’s how Jess remembers her the clearest. That’s when Alice was the brightest.

Not this girl who seemed as substantial as mist, halfway dead and mostly lost; this girl that Jess feels is slipping away from her faster than she can save her. This is the version of Alice that terrifies the fuck out of Jess, frankly. A blank slate of emotion, no way to determine what she’s thinking or feeling, but she can see that all joy and hope has drained from her. The walking dead, in every way that matters.

And the idea that Alice would go anywhere else before coming to Jess, that Alice assumes Jess would not want her here makes Jess feel vaguely sick. That Alice is waiting for a reprimand, retribution, and punishment for coming to find her.

(What happened to her? This isn’t the steady girl that she left behind. This version of her is so very shattered. Of all the ways Jess had imagined Alice after she left, this one was never even a shadow of a possibility.)

“This is the only place you need to be,” Jess says in a low voice, reaching out to cradle Alice’s cheek. “I am so … fucking happy to see you. I missed you so much.” There are a million other questions she has - Are you okay? How did you get away? What do you need? - but she saves them, tucks them away for later when they are cloistered in a corner of the Cullens’ enormous house, and there is time for mess and raw pain and the opportunity to breathe.

Alice bites her lip and nods, and that’s when Jess’s siblings gather around the car, obviously having walked slowly to give Jess and Alice a moment alone. Or as alone as they could be with several hundred high school students watching and commentating.

“We need to take this back to the house,” Rose says stiffly; she’s not happy at the spectacle in front of the school, but she’s not particularly upset with Jess or Alice; Jess wonders how long Rose’s tolerance will last. “Edward’s taking Bella home.”

Somehow, reality is separate from whatever is happening right now, like she and Alice are in some kind of bubble, away from Forks and humans and all the day to day monotony. Right now, she’s just intensely aware of Alice’s body so close to hers; to that sweet lemon-sunshine scent that Alice has always had. Of the new scars on Alice’s hands and face that Jess doesn’t know; and the way she holds her right arm closer to her body. She is so intensely aware of the way Alice’s eyelashes brush her cheeks as she blinks, perfectly still and perfectly unhappy.

None of it feels real, not even with Alice’s hand in hers.

“Let’s go,” she manages to tell Alice, who nods. She always follows orders.

Jess slides off the roof of the car to land next to it, reaching out a hand to help Alice down.

“I’ve got you,” she says, brushing some of Alice’s hair off of her face.

Alice stares at her for a moment, those big dark eyes that Jess has been in love with for longer than she can remember.

“You always have,” Is all she says, as they climb into the car, but she doesn’t take her hand out of Jess’s.

I’ve got you.

—

alice.

The Cullen house smells clean and like the woods at the back of the garden. It’s full of light, it’s dry, it’s a hundred different things that Monterrey never was and could never aspire to be. Like so many things she’s known lately, it feels like something she’s allowed to see, but it’s not for her to keep. A stolen glimpse before she keeps moving.

Her feet stick to the wooden floors, and she’s intensely aware that the lake bath she had before she got to Forks is not enough for these people. They wear shoes and jewelry, and they’ve got their clothing in the right order. They aren’t like her.

Right now, everything feels very far away, like she’s watching herself from a great distance.

She knows that Jessamine is waiting for her to speak, to say something small. To offer her a truth, a reason, for why she came to her. To finally share that cursed secret Jessamine demanded all those years ago, when keeping it was the only thing that kept them both alive.

Maybe the thing she wants more than anything is to scream and scream until it all spills out of her. That she’s all knotted up inside, that aren’t so much secrets as the whole, messy truth.

The truth is that she was raised back up with no memory of love or affection or family, just a vague promise of it that was ruined before she even began, and she’s not really sure how love is supposed to feel anymore.

So she’s spent eighty years clinging to a half-glimpsed possibility of her and Jessamine meeting in a human establishment, of that soft and perfect promise because she had nothing else, and now she’s not who she was when Jessamine left her, and she’s never going to be who she was supposed to be, not for herself or for Jessamine or for both of them.

She knows if she could sleep, there would be nothing but nightmares and horrors. Of all the things she’s seen and done, all the things that have been done to her. That just to survive, to save them both, she had to let herself be swallowed up, bite by bite, by the wars and the propaganda and so many lies.

And now she doesn’t know if there’s anything left of her to salvage, let alone piece back together.

Jessamine’s hand is in hers, and it isn’t letting go.

That’s something.

All the words that are being spoken, they sound like they are muffled, underwater somehow. They look at her, waiting, and the words still don’t come.

The urge to scream is fading. Jessamine’s hand is still in hers; maybe she’s holding on too tight. She feels like if she lets go, everything will disappear.

So she holds on tighter and steadies herself and even manages to walk further into the house. Maybe she finds just enough words to explain that it’s all new and fresh and when she ran, it was like the flat of a knife against a human throat - a flash of a chance, more likely death than freedom, but somehow she made it work.

That the idea of hunting turns her stomach, and the whole world seemed so big and bright that the only place to go was to Jessamine.

“I’ve never known anything but you and life here.”

(Later, cloistered in Jessamine’s study wearing borrowed clothing, she’ll start to weep and she won’t be able to stop. Jessamine will hold her and stroke her hair and try to reassure her of things that Alice has never confided in her. They won’t be the last tearless tears she will cry, but they will be the rawest and the truest. She still doesn’t know what love or hope or dreams feel like, but whatever this is, it’s more than she’s ever had before.)

AN:

Yeah, this version of Mary-Alice somehow got the worst welcome to Monterrey; a vision of her True Love interrupted by said True Love deciding to attack her; taken back to Maria to be tortured for information for a couple of nights before being tossed into the barn with a bunch of fresh and vicious newborns who don’t recognise her as One of Them. She really opted to get all flavors of trauma packed into that very first week of life.

Mary-Alice never told Jessamine or Maria about her gift at all. According to them, she was giftless, just skilled. That first week really fucked with her head.

This version has Mary-Alice leave the South and head straight to Forks. There’s about a week between Mary-Alice fleeing Maria and turning up on the Cullens’ car, so there’s a lot of fresh hurt and a lot of terror at being in a brave new world where she doesn’t know the rules. So, she’s been with Maria from 1919 right up until the 2000s.

Jess, to me, has always had a more hair-trigger temper and spontaneous personality compared to Jasper. This is because of the period-typical emotional repression that men aspired to during the Civil War; Jessamine is a little freer with expressing herself because, frankly, it would take balls to run away and pose as a boy to join the army, and even more to achieve the rank of Major. Jessamine is definitely a wildcard.

I spit on Life and Death’s version of Jessamine being kidnapped into the wars.

It was intentional that Jess only shortened her name after she met the Cullens, and that whilst she calls Mary-Alice ‘Alice’, Mary-Alice never calls her ‘Jess’. How this is significant is up to you.

Yes, the relationship between Jess and Alice feels darker than in OG STL, but this is Jessamine's side of the story. She's always painted all of her choices and actions before the Cullens with the same brush - that she was toxic and monstrous.

#jessamine hale #alice cullen #jalice #gay twilight #lgbtq twilight #ficmas23 #ficmas #my fic: lead & follow #i feel like jess lasts three days and then calls peter for reinforcements because she has no idea what to do #alice just wants to curl up somewhere dark and cool and breakdown for a while #the gossip in forks is WILD after this #it took me ages to try and format this properly and it didn't work thanks so much tumblr

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justafeweggnoodles · 22 days

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Everything's Interconnected AU Timeline Part 3: Hermitcraft S8 & 9

Timeline masterpost :D

Through the void of space

A spaceship is taking a bunch of people to a new land. The captain had been asked to pick up a girl from the void of space, this girl was Pearl (Sunflower). She was successfully picked up but another girl also ended up being picked up and put into statis with the others. The second girl was Gem (Dawn). All the hermits are in statis pods while they are taken through space to the land of Hermitcraft S9. Where the other hermits come from is not super important for the story, it is implied they all knew each other and something happened to their last home.

Hermitcraft S8

I saw something implying that Hermitcraft S8 was a simulation while the Hermits where being transported through space and my brain never let it go :D So in this AU Hermitcraft S8 is a simulation. The Hermits do not know it is / was a simulation.

Simulation Breaks

When the spaceship arrives at the land of Hermitcraft S9, the captain needs to wake up the hermits from the simulation. Its was decided they would destroy the simulated world, hence Big Moon. This plan worked well and all the hermits exited the simulation and then where dropped in the lands of Hermitcraft S9. One unintended consequence of Big Moon was the Mooners or more accurately the goddess they created. The simulated moon ended up gaining sapience but not control over the moon crashing. When the simulation the fact she had consciousness and people where worshiping her she turned into a god instead of ceasing to exist.

Hermitcraft S9

The hermits wake up on the stony shores of Hermitcraft S9. They go on and live their lives doing the batshit insane stuff they did in the series. There isn't much of note except Gem (Dawn) and Pearl (Sunflower) travel between worlds throughout this period, even before the rifts open. The rifts open and the hermits travel to Empires S2 then vice versa. At some point Bdubs is made into a fake god and then because of peoples beliefs he gets turned into a real sun god. Which makes both the moon goddess and the sun god accidental gods, who did not plan to become gods and had worshipers before they where gods.

Life continues in S9

Even after the worlds have been linked by the rifts before it is still difficult for most hermits to travel between worlds (there are some exceptions), with someone who is more experienced or simply has the power to world hop they can do it quite effortlessly. Most hermits have little to no interaction with other worlds outside of Hermitcraft and they all keep on living there.

Further explanations: Part 1: Kingdomcraft / Empires, Part 2: X-life / Afterlife, Part 4: Newlife, Part 5: Points of connection

If you have any questions feel free to send me an ask :D

#Everything's Interconnected AU #hermitcraft smp #hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #hermitcraft s8 #hermitcraft season 8 #hermitcraft season 9 #hermitcraft s9

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improvised-finish · 29 days

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Wondrous Tails - Stack Marker "Lighter Party"

My first fic for Wondrous Tails this year is finally done! The prompt was "Stack Marker", and I wrote a bit of the final boss fight from the post-Endwalker dungeon Alzadaal's Legacy with Lehon'a and her former-Scion companions getting into a bit of a sticky situation. I had fun putting it together, and hopefully I'll have more coming soon!

You can either keep reading below, or check it out on AO3!

-----

They’d made it this far into Alzadaal’s treasure vault without much issue. To be fair, they had met with some resistance, but the thoughts of what might await them at the bottom had kept them pushing forward. As they stood on the precipice of the deepest room in the vault, Lehon'a looked to her party, gauging everyone's readiness.

“Still with me?” she asked, the smile on her face covering up some of the exhaustion in her voice.

“Absolutely,” G’raha replied, brandishing his sword and shield of light with determination flashing in his eyes. Even though he had his fair share of cuts and scrapes, it was clear to Lehon’a how much being on an adventure with her meant to him.

Urianger followed suit with a nod, though Lehon'a noticed he seemed to be breathing a bit heavier than the others.

“Are you?” Y'shtola asked with a wry smile, trying to add a bit of levity to the situation. Lehon'a knew she was pretty quick to drop the snark when things got serious, so she took it as a good sign.

“Never been better,” Lehon’a replied, hoping the exaggeration would come off as humorous rather than the half truth it was.

And with that, they charged into the final chamber, where a guardian fashioned of metal and cloth awaited them. G’raha rushed ahead, holding the automaton’s attention while Lehon’a and the two mages peppered it with attacks from afar. Even though they were keeping up the assault and successfully dodging its first few attacks, Lehon’a could tell that they were all a bit haggard. She wasn’t sure if it was just the residual fatigue from their recent journey to the edge of the universe, or the physical toll of the earlier combat encounters that day, or even their long journey to the vault itself, but she didn’t feel as sharp as she usually did, and she could only guess the others felt similarly. It was no matter, everything seemed to be going as expected.

In the blink of an eye, that had all changed. Their foe had thrown out a ribbon attack at each of them, and all four were equally caught off guard as the cloth wrapped them up and dragged them to the front of the room. The makeshift arena they fought in was surrounded by spikes that jutted up from the floor, and with what little time she had to look around before being yanked forward, Lehon’a noticed additional spikes protruding from the tiles in the middle of the room, too.

Just as soon as they had been pulled close, the guardian had yanked the ribbons loose, sending each of them into a violent spin in a different direction. As Lehon’a tried her best to steady herself and avoid the spiked hazards that littered the room, she noticed that Urianger had gone off course and was headed straight for them.

“Urianger, look out!” she yelled, but to no avail. His foot caught one of the spikes and he immediately fell over, narrowly avoiding getting impaled, but hardly looking unscathed. Lehon’a could see some blurry red streaks as she whirled around, and guessed that he’d probably gotten at least a couple nasty gashes, if not worse. Regardless, it didn’t seem like he’d be back on his feet anytime soon, so she knew it was up to the three of them to finish this thing off before it finished them.

Once he regained his footing, G’raha immediately jumped back into the fray. He moved quickly to intercept their foe before it could get any closer to anyone else, especially Urianger, who was still hunched over on the ground. Y’shtola, hoping that the automaton would remain stationary for a time, called forth a ley line where she stood, and Lehon’a began a simple two-step dance sequence, aiming to increase the potency of Y’shtola’s upcoming barrage of magic attacks. As she completed the steps to her dance, she noticed the boss winding up an overhead strike, aimed squarely at G’raha.

“Shield up, Raha!” Lehon'a yelled, hoping she wasn’t too late.

“Right you are, my friend!” he replied, raising his shield and expending no small amount of aether to create a barrier around himself in the brief instant before the giant weapon came crashing down. It took a moment for the dust kicked up by the impact to settle, but when it did, G’raha stood in the middle of it, looking no worse for wear.

The magical light that had surrounded him began to fade as the giant automaton turned its focus away from G’raha. Lehon’a’s instincts told her this was going to be an even bigger attack than the last, and she quickly deduced its target from the direction it now faced: Y’shtola.

“Everyone to me, now!” Y’shtola shouted, as if she were reading Lehon’a’s thoughts. Lehon’a immediately broke into a sprint and dashed towards Y’shtola, spending some extra aether to cover more ground with a flourish. G’raha immediately followed suit, turning and running towards Y’shtola’s ley line. He slid to a stop right on the edge of the circle closest to their foe and firmly planted his sword into the ground, raising his shield. As brilliant wings of light emerged from it to surround the three of them, Lehon’a performed the steps to a samba, layering an additional barrier of magic onto the group. She only hoped it would be enough as they braced for the impact.

The attack hit: a large magical blast emanating from the floor beneath them. It knocked them around and kicked up yet more dust, but the three of them managed to stay on their feet. Lehon’a looked towards Y’shtola and took her free hand, briefly spinning her in the style of a waltz to heal both the two of them and G’raha at once. This wasn’t the first time she’d done it, but Lehon’a could’ve sworn that this time she saw a slight blush in Y’shtola’s cheeks. As she glanced over to G’raha to make sure he was okay, she noticed he also seemed to be a bit more flushed than usual. That will have to be a conversation for later, she thought to herself.

“Let’s finish this!” Lehon’a yelled, rallying her friends for a final salvo as she began a more elaborate dance combination that would give them the firepower they needed. Y’shtola took the opportunity to begin focusing on a large fire spell, while G’raha lunged back towards the guardian with sword drawn. Between the wave of energy generated by Lehon’a’s dance, the violent explosions of Y’shtola’s black magic, and G’raha’s brutal sword strikes, the automaton stood no chance. With one final slash, it fell to the ground with a resounding thud, defeated.

As the adrenaline from the fight began to wear off, Lehon’a sudden found herself feeling especially exhausted. She and her comrades staggered over to where Urianger was sitting, and joined him on the floor.

Lehon’a looked around at her party; Y’shtola helping to take care of Urianger’s wounds with white magic, and G’raha grinning ear to ear, clearly still riding the high of the thrilling battle. They all shared a knowing glance, and then everyone began laughing, overcome with the joy of camaraderie and the relief at a tense and hard-fought victory.

I really couldn’t have asked for a better group than this, Lehon’a thought to herself, a smile growing across her face.

#my writing #ffxiv #lehon'a nhavareh #ffxiv oc #warrior of light #g'raha tia #y'shtola rhul #urianger augurelt #alzadaal's legacy #wondrous tails of ffxiv #wondrous tails 2024

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wellthatwasaletdown · 2 years

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I would put all my money on Harry still being in love w Camille. If she wanted him & were to come back into his life, he would take her back w open arms & drop Olivia. I believe Camille was the love of his life. And I know they were only together a year or so, but Harry falls quickly & he falls hard.

The lyrics "I'm falling again, I'm falling again, I'm falling" Harry is talking about another failed relationship.

And the only reason none of his relationships have worked out until now, is bc none of them kissed his ass & followed him around the world. They had things going on in their own lives & didn't lose themselves in Harry. Plus, he's a serial cheater.

I think Harry loves Olivia chasing him & being at his shows. He gets a high off of it. From feeling needed. No one has ever shown him the type of attention that Olivia has & she has two kids & can still find the time to fly out to him at the drop of a hat.

In Harry's mind he's dating a director that is not only older than him, but smarter. And usually with age comes wisdom. Harry thinks she's cool & makes him look smart. Just as she is attracted to his fame, he is attracted to her status.

He could never have that with a flight attendant that no one knows. Statis is everything to Harry.

And as much as Harry talks about sex, I get the feeling Olivia would be up for anything. I also believe the reason she's at so many of his shows is bc deep down she doesn't trust him. She knows he has a track record. If she thinks he is a changed man bc of her, she is setting herself up for disappointment.

History has a way of repeating itself & if Harry wasn't able to resist Olivia who was his boss & had a fiance waiting for her at home, no way is he going to be able to resist temptation while on the road when Olivia isn't around & girls are throwing themselves at him. And as much as Olivia is with Harry, she is equally as much away from him. It is in those moments when he is alone that she needs to worry darling. (sorry so long)

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thecava · 1 year

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The Wildsea

[English first, poi in italiano]

This game's setting is everything. This literal sea of trees is an incredible work of worldbuilding, making it a vibrant, deep and nuanced expanse that makes you want to find out more about it, and, while there's plenty of lore to build your own tales, making your own and adding to the setting is what it's all about. The character's Aspects, Drives and Mires are quite a storytelling engine, and the Aspects in particular you can choose from during character creation are a blast. To the point that every character we made, didn't matter if we focused on synergies, weirdness or coolness, we always got an entertaining result that made their scenes special. The system uses Forged in the Dark's dice resolution mechanic, almost, but applied more traditionally, and there's quite a bit of bookkeeping to keep track of on the character sheets. You also have to make one for your party's chainsaw-prowed ship and its crew, that will mostly come into play during Exploration scenes. I also really appreciated how character can add their own Discoveries during their journeys by putting together a Map and a Whisper (living ideas that take root in your characters, begging to become a Story), adding to the setting themselves. One of my favorite details are the languages, though, as skill in those doesn't just determine your fluency, but also, and more importantly, your knowledge of the associated culture.

L'ambientazione di questo gioco è tutto. Questo letterale mare di alberi è un'incredibile opera di worldbuilding, una distesa profonda, vibrante e piena di sfumature che ti stimola ad esplorarla e, benché fornisca già una base più che sufficiente, aggiungere le vostre è il vero fulcro di questo gioco. Gli Aspetti, Moventi e Pantani dei personaggi sono degli ottimi motori di narrazione, gli Aspetti fra cui scegliere, poi, sono particolarmente spassosi. Al punto che ogni personaggio che abbiamo fatto, indipendentemente che ci concentrassimo sulle sinergie, la stranezza o l'eccesso, abbiamo sempre ottenuto dei risultati giocabili che rendevano speciali le scene in cui entravano in gioco. La risoluzione delle azioni usa la meccanica dei dadi dei Forged in the Dark, ma applicata in modo più tradizionale e le schede necessitano un po' di contabilità da parte dei giocatori. Contando inoltre che anche la nave del gruppo con la sua ciurma e prua a motosega necessita una scheda, che entra in gioco principalmente nelle scene di Esplorazione. Ho veramente apprezzato anche come i personaggi possano aggiungere le loro Scoperte mettendo insieme una Mappa e un Sussurro (idee viventi che si infiltrano nella loro mente e cercano di diventare una Storia), facendogli creare elementi nell'ambientazione. Per finire, uno dei miei dettagli preferiti sono stati i Linguaggi, che non rappresentano soltanto la padronanza dello stesso, ma anche quanto il personaggio conosce della cultura ed essi legata.

The Wildsea.

#ttrpg #indie ttrpg #rpg design #gdr #the wildsea #31 day challenge #post apoc rp #exploration #sailing

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chasani · 1 year

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this deity au of yours interests me (im a nerd about mythology and stuff)

i wanna know more

give me all the infos

My DRv3 Deity AU!!

I'm still working on a lot of things, but...

Rantaro Deity of Adventure

Calm/Mysterious/Suspicious (?)

Explores the universe, mapping it for other deities

Explores outside of this universe to trade goods with other universes

Strong Rock/Gem/Geo Collector

Loves it when the wind gets in his hair

Kaede "Aka" Deity of Sound

Kind/Sweet

Loves to create sound and make music

Often performs when Miu is around

Forms strings from her outfit and plays

Ryoma Deity of Balance/Emotion

Collected/Mysterious

Can force someone's emotion to change by touching them

Keeps a balance of emotions in the universe

Often sends people to his hide out so he can deal with the people ruining the balance

Often or not they are forgotten about, and either the Tenko or

Kirumi "Kiru" Deity of Knowledge

Smiles/Emotionless

Stays hidden away, locked up by some beast a long time ago

Gives knowledge to those worth of it

Knows everything their is to know, whether it is past, present, or future

Angie Deity of Creation

Emotional/Collected, depending on mood

Can't create "out of thin air"

Can rearrange molecules to get something new

Anything painted, sculpted, etc comes to "life" out of the material it was made of

Tenko Deity of Life/Protection

One of the few that knows the myth of Oma is real

Energetic/Emotionful

Job is to keep balance with Oma, but they're constantly fighting

Korekiyo "Kiyo" Deity of the After Life

One of the few that knows the myth of Oma is real

Calm/Collected

Takes souls when they die (Oma kills them)

Watches over the souls so they get what they deserve (good/bad)

Miu Deity of Love (+Heartbreak)

Derogative/Expressionful

Is like a cupid, but instead uses a machine they built to send out love hearts

Can break up current relationships

Can put together people not in relationships

People often go for relationship advice

Gonta Deity of Nature

KindHearted/Gentle

Plants form wherever he steps

Doesn't know how strong he is, constantly accidentally breaks things

Tries to be friends with all the Deities, or at least acquaintances (Currently is/was with everyone but Oma)

Widely known by everyone

Neutral statis with everyone

Kokichi "Oma" Deity of Death

Is believed to be a myth

Doesn't like his title

Despises Murder/Death

Can control (time) Bubble

Can look into the past/future

Anyone/Any living thing he touches is killed after a few seconds (Whether trapped in vines, or suffocated

He can split people up, and send part of them to Heaven and explode the rest (Heck)

Can't grant eternal life, only internal suffering

Emotionless, Eyebags

Wants to be freed from internal suffering (killed)

Can only speak the truth

Kaito "Momota" Deity of Space

Energetic

Controls the Constellations and Stars

Can make create stars/make them explode

Can rearrange the stars

Moves the constellations when Earth moves

On a mission to find who controls time

Tsumugi "Mugi" Deity of Puppeteering

Calm/Secretive/Kind

Can control human-like or human entities

Strings attach from Mugi to an entity, and which can only go through the two of them

Can control multiple entities at a cost

To control: Everything Mugi does is copy by the entity, depending on which string is moved

If an organ is connected to a string and is ripped out, the entity experiences extream outburst of emotion

K1-B0 "Kiibo" Deity of Humans

Expresses Self,

Watches over the humans

Wants to learn more about them

Robot that save many from the Roughon War, and such honored as a deity

Unknown place/time of creation, unknown creator

Maki Deity of Sea

Collected/Mysterious

Can manipulate and control any source of water (that includes extracting water from other fluids)

Tends to use the ocean for the worse

Often drowns people, to which Oma has to go get

Tends to win battles by flooding the area, aka only fighting in areas with large bodies of water

Turns human or human-like entities into sea creatures, doesn't work on deities

Himiko Deity of Illusion

Sweet and Childish

Can create mirages and illusions

Often performs "magic tricks" with her abilities

Known to trick anyone into believing anything, even if they know it's false

Protected by Tenko

Shuichi "Saihara" Deity of Sky

Shy/Scared/Collected

Controls the weather

Tries to search the universe to solve all the myths

On a mission to find the Dangerous Myth of the Death Deity

Oma could've been the Deity of Pranks or Tricks, but that can be for another au

#chasani #my au #my DRv3 aus #drv3 #drv3 au

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zelda-photography · 1 year

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Tears of the Kingdom - Initial Thoughts

Can it be called initial thoughts if I've already played, like, 12 hours of it at least? We'll go with that anyway.

I'm going to put most of it beneath the cut, but here I'll just say: it is good. If you were worried at all that exploring Hyrule specifically would not be fun, it is extremely fun and I'm having a blast.

For reference of how far I am: I decided I would get one part of the main quest done before doing serious exploration. I've been to Castle Town, underground a couple times, have done one thing with Impa's quest, and I'm pretty far in the Rito Village quest line.

The opening cutscene was so good, I really love that they had Link have a million hearts, only for them to be ripped away. And Zelda! I love her so much, she got so excited over the murals! I hope there's more chances to see her nerd out.

I'm really unsure what to think about Rauru. I love his design, he has a nice voice, like overall I really love him, to be honest! But, his character profile is annoyingly vague, and I can't shake the feeling he might try and betray us at some point.

The sky islands are really cool! I feel like Nintendo really noticed how much people liked climbing shit, and so much of the game feels geared towards that.

The different runes are interesting. I thought that we'd have the new runes in addition to the old runes. I miss some of the old runes (bombs and statis specifically) but also I see how that would just lead to much the same, and by not giving them back, it keeps the game fresh and allows the devs to put in different puzzles.

'Castle Town' (I can't remember the name right now) is wonderful. The world in general feels so full of people, so full of life. I love talking to literally everybody that I can. 'Castle Town' being built over the old ceremony place (from the cutscene where Link is kneeling in front of Zelda) I think is a good example of the mentality of the rebuilding project - make use of everything, even the things that were once deemed 'sacred', for the good of furthering Hyrule. Seeing people growing up is so neat! I am confused as to how Purah got so old - it seems like most of the kids are teens now, but she looks like an adult - but I'm guessing maybe she just ages faster than the rest? Her new assistant Josha is so cute too!! What a nerd I love her!

The plot so far is a lot more engaging and a lot more of mystery, trying to figure out what it is Zelda is doing and exactly what it is you're supposed to be doing.

Shout out to my girl Traysi, running a newspaper and selling the best armor! For real, that was an offer you couldn't refuse. I am missing Kass, we haven't seen him at all :(

There's also a lot of small things I'm really appreciating, like the music in the shrines and their aesthetic, the fact that your have all your horses from you BotW profile if you're playing on the same account. The world feels like the same Hyrule, but so changed, so new still, and I'm excited to re-explore it, honest to goodness. And to check in on my old friends, see how they're doing! Even small side characters are remembered; I got insanely excited over seeing Oliff.

The bottom line is, I'm enjoying this game a lot. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts later, and more critiques after I've gotten more used to it. Right now one is that going through your items can be a little hard to find what you're looking for in a relatively fast manner. Also I feel like I always have so many already fused items - like pre-fused before I even get them - that it makes it hard to find weapons that I can fuse with items.

I'm still going through the Rito questline, but I love Tulin! Favorite little boy <3<3<3

#mod speaks #not photography #totk #tears of the kingdom #totk spoilers

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sidmjkgc · 4 months

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Here's a lovely example of what it's like to be female presenting or a woman in a chatroom in Italy right now:

(all under the cut 'cause it's awful - cw misogyny and racism and violence)

Original text:

Puttana privilegiata, approfittatrice e vittimista! Parassita e vigliacca! Buona festa della violenza sulle cagne! Lo sai che almeno i primi ostaggi liberati questo mese dai palestinesi e dagli israeltani sono quasi tutti femmine ? Chissà come mai ? Per caso, la vita di una femmina vale di più di quella di un uomo ? Bel privilegio che avete ! Qua non manifestate contro il patriarcato, vero ? Non dite niente; rimanete nel vostro vigliacco silenzio ! E, al telegiornale,non dite neanche: "liberate le ostagge e gli ostaggi, telespettatrici e telespettatori"; in questo caso, vi conviene vigliaccamente dire: "liberati gli ostaggi", così da nascondere il privilegio di cui godete solo voi femmine ! Siete solo delle piccole galline invertebrate senza dignità ... delle parassite vigliacche senza spina dorsale ... Lo sai che, ogni anno, negli stati uniti, si suicidano, per la disperazione, 70 femmine di merda come te solo per aver subìto un banale stupro ? Poverine, non sopportano l'onta di essersi fatte usare senza prima essere state pagate ... Questa è pulizia di genere ! In questo modo, non c'è neanche bisogno di sprecare pallottole o Zyklon B ! Per eliminare queste parassite, basta un orgasmo che, una volta tanto, sono loro a pagare, sacrificando da sole la loro inutile vita! Voglio vedervi tutte appese a una croce, con le gambe spalancate e una lancia conficcata in quel vostro lurido buco!!!

Google translation, 'cause I refuse to actually put the work in:

Privileged whore, exploiter and victimizer! Parasite and coward! Happy Bitch Violence Day! Did you know that at least the first hostages freed this month by the Palestinians and Israelis are almost all females? Who knows why? By any chance, is the life of a female worth more than that of a man? What a privilege you have! You don't demonstrate against patriarchy here, do you? Don't say anything; remain in your cowardly silence! And, on the news, don't even say: "free the hostages, male and female viewers"; in this case, it is better for you to cowardly say: "free the hostages", so as to hide the privilege that only you females enjoy! You are just little invertebrate chickens without dignity... cowardly parasites without a spine... Do you know that every year in the United States, 70 shitty females like you commit suicide out of desperation just for having suffered a banal rape? Poor things, they can't bear the shame of letting themselves be used without first being paid... This is gender cleansing! This way, you don't even have to waste bullets or Zyklon B! To eliminate these parasites, an orgasm is enough which, for once, they are the ones who pay for, sacrificing their useless life themselves! I want to see you all hanging on a cross, with your legs wide open and a spear stuck in that filthy hole of yours!!!

---

I didn't wanna post this, but he decided to write me again with the same copy-and-paste text, for like the fourth (more?) time and so... Here we are, now you too can read it.

In the past couple of months there's been a debate in Italy about adding Comprehensive Sexuality Education lessons in school since we do not have it at the moment, but let's face it: everything's fine and we don't need it, right? Right?! I'm so tired.

#sid talks #italian tag

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transfemstarscream · 2 years

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so in this post i said i wanted to talk/write about how interesting i think it is that in transformers, starscream doesn’t really fit in with the “big three” decepticons (of course megatron, soundwave, and shockwave) and how it’s a discussion on her femininity vs. their masculinity. this got really long so i’m putting this under read more; it came off as more ramble-y then i thought so apologies for any errors.

one thing that sticks out if you put the four together is how only three of them wear similar, cool color palettes; megatron is almost entirely grey (a light grey with darker grey in some areas) with red accents, soundwave is grey and dark blue with red and gold accents, and shockwave is entirely purple (his grey even has purple undertones!) and a yellow eye to top it off. their designs are all matching and blend in well with each other… except for starscream’s, who is not subtle at all. instead of cool, desaturated colors with warm accents, starscream is instead red, white, and blue with a bright yellow cockpit and a dark helm/face plate instead of the most common white helm/face plate.

not only is she very noticeable at first glance because of how bright and colorful she is in comparison to the rest of them, but she also looks… out of place. not only literally because her colors don't match as well as say megatron and soundwave’s do, but also because red, white and blue are most commonly a lot of the color palette G1 autobots used, most popular example being optimus of course.

there’s a lot of things to appreciate about this. starscream’s colors being in opposition to theirs can be a symbol of her deceptive and unloyal nature towards the decepticon cause and specifically megatron, as he’s almost all grey while she’s covered in colors. it also highlights just how out of place she looks while next to the three of them… in more ways than one, i believe.

although i believe the subject of their character designs is just as important as the characters themselves, let’s ask ourselves a question: who are the main four decepticons?

in theory, this question is easy to anyone with basic knowledge of transformers. megatron is the decepticon leader, starscream is the decepticon second-in-command, soundwave is the decepticons’ communications officer, and shockwave is, although varying depending on what source you’re using, the computer guy and guardian of cybertron for the decepticons. but who are they as people, and how do their acts as their respective positions define them?

i ask this because it’s very common that while megatron, soundwave, and especially shockwave will be described and defined by what they do, what they’re capable of, and what they’ve achieved… starscream will be described by who she is personality wise, not by her actions like the former three. megatron started the war, led a resistance force against the autobots, and managed to kill optimus prime. soundwave is megatron’s most loyal soldier, has his full trust, and is in general a very dangerous and smart opponent. shockwave managed the decepticons well while megatron was in statis, and essentially everything is his fault in the grand scheme of things. other than starscream’s yearn to be the decepticon leader and her several attempts at megatron’s life… what actions really describe her? sure, she’s regarded as one of the most morally bankrupt decepticons, but that’s still describing her as a person rather than what she does to earn that descriptor.

the reputation of the main four decepticons is that they’re intimidating, frightening big guys, and if you’re the big four of the decepticons then you definitely have the guns to back it up. megatron, soundwave, and shockwave do, and the story will often enforce just how dangerous they are by their actions, but starscream is often shafted in comparison. her accomplishments aren’t really considered all that important nor is she complimented as generously as the other three. her involvement in stories is very limited despite how recognizable she’s made out to be in transformers media to this very day. that’s where the subject of why i believe starscream is transfeminine coded, which is a very complex subject by itself, comes into play.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave are regarded as masculine and are described with positive traits (associated with male villains): megatron is a strong, intimidating and ruthless war commander. soundwave is a stoic, silent but deadly spy who is also genuinely loyal and trustworthy to his leader. shockwave is an intelligent, logical scientist who is, literally, the reason why a lot of shit happens. they’re often regarded as masculine figures in both official content and fan content, praised for how “awesome” they are. they are competent and consistent villains in most of their iterations, and often play a huge part in the shows/comics they’re in with a few exceptions. their impact as villains and their actions are what make them striking.

starscream, in comparison, is regarded as feminine (the word “effeminate” is a lot more commonly used, though i personally dislike it, especially in this context) and is described with “negative” traits: starscream is a whiny, easily irritable scumbag and it’s questioned how she even got position of SIC. starscream is vain and flamboyant, more concerned with hiding behind the big guys because she’s too obsessed with her frame to damage it. she’s regarded in harsher terms as mentally, emotionally, and psychologically unstable. she is not regarded as a masculine figure but rather as a “failed” man and/or her femininity is amped up in some of her depictions, but also notably her fanon depictions (whether or not this is done in a positive light or negative light doesn’t really matter), and she is considered a controversial character among the fanbase— very loved by some and very hated by others. she is not portrayed as competent or is very consistent in her characterization to the point where stories often imply her accomplishments have happened offscreen, and despite her prevalence in a lot of transformers media she more or less never has a huge impact on the story or plot barring a few iterations at best. she’s only really made striking by her personality and comedy, not her role as a villain or actions in the story.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave are strong, while starscream is weak. they are rightfully prideful, while starscream is foolishly arrogant. they are comfortable in their image, while starscream is obsessed and vain. they are calculated, while starscream is hysterical. they are competent and know what they’re doing, while starscream is incompetent and hides behind whatever big bot is around after causing a mess she made.

the general point i’m getting at is that despite all four of them being classified as villains, starscream is further vilified and demonized because she exhibits traits that are not traditionally masculine. “but wait, being whiny and vain aren’t inherently feminine traits!” and you’re right. in order to convey what type of character starscream is meant to be, that’s what people picture to be a “failed man”. she’s not on the same type of level as megatron, soundwave, or shockwave— she was designed to not be. she was designed to be inherently hated. she is not the cool, masculine villain figure who overpowers the heroes and succeeds in her plans. she is an emotional, hysterical failure of a villain who needs to rely on the Real, Strong Men if she even wants to succeed in something.

while megatron, soundwave, and shockwave are unsettling and creepy because of what they do and who they are—big, powerful figures of the decepticon cause who have proven to be fully capable of anything—starscream is meant to be unsettling because of what she represents. a high-pitched voice jet whose design resembles heels and a prominent chest plate who cares about her appearance to the point of vanity, is regarded as emotionally unstable and has easy to trigger jealousy; starscream is everything a non-traditionally masculine character in the 1980s could be. she’s really how gay you could make a character without explicitly saying they were gay in the 1980s. on that topic… how do the former three’s relationships with other characters contrast to starscream’s relationships with other characters?

an easy place to start is the relationship shared between the big four decepticons themselves. we know the positions they all have in the decepticons, but what do they think of each other? and here is where starscream further establishes herself as not really belonging among them.

soundwave and shockwave (to an extent) are loyal and offer their full servitude to megatron, while starscream makes her hatred and disloyalty of megatron no secret, and is disdainful of him. soundwave is megatron’s fully trusted communications officer, shockwave at the very least respects soundwave, and starscream makes it apparent she finds him annoying and is prone to trying to one-up him. shockwave is regarded as fiercely intelligent by megatron, and soundwave pays no real mind to him, and starscream finds him unsettling and often argues with him, making it fully clear she thinks he’s full of shit. and starscream’s hatred towards her peers are not one-sided! they all clearly hate her back and the respect they have for her in return is very bare bones and almost non-existent (shockwave especially in this regard). so among their relationships with each other…

megatron trusts soundwave, megatron respects shockwave, megatron hates starscream (only keeps her around to prove a point).

soundwave is loyal to megatron, soundwave respects shockwave, soundwave hates starscream (respects megatron more than he hates her).

shockwave follows megatron, shockwave respects soundwave, shockwave hates starscream (is very open about this fact).

starscream does not like any of them.

another thing to take away from this is that starscream is also the most open about her hatred of all three of them. megatron, soundwave, and shockwave are mature about their dislike towards other by keeping it hidden and only allowing it to slip through when intimidation is required— maturity is regarded as masculine in this case. starscream, however, is very loud with how much she hates them, and is not above making countless petty remarks and insults towards them— her “cattiness” and immaturity are regarded as feminine.

this extends to their relationships with other characters. more specifically the positive/complex relationships with male characters megatron, soundwave, and shockwave have— and what starscream subverts.

megatron, has many relationships with the other male characters, many of them having developed into positive ones with the introduction of autobot megatron in the IDW1 run. his most popular is of course optimus, his established arch nemesis and character foil. whether one is interested in this dynamic as romantic or not, it does not deter that optimus and megatron’s relationship in many iterations is often a lot more explored and deep, as although it depends on the continuity, you’ll get a glimpse of what they used to be to each other before the war. optimus and megatron at their very core respect each other as equals, which coming from megatron must be special to him.

and the list of relationships he has with other male characters can go on. his genuine trust in soundwave was discussed, cyclonus and him can count if you consider galvatron as megatron in this scenario, etc. IDW1 has also given him a lot more positive relationships with men, such as rodimus, minimus ambus, etc. hell, megatron even has NEW dangerous enemies to deal with because he’s no longer the decepticon leader, such as the entire DJD (overlord and tarn specifically). he’s a man many established relationships, all with variety and with respect ingrained in all of them.

starscream, in comparison… doesn’t really have any of that. in fact, although you could technically consider megatron her arch nemesis and character foil, megatron’s not solely unique to her character. in fact, he’s not that uncommon to be enemies with. she never really has a “strong” male character enemy to be foils to; she definitely parallels other male characters, but it never feels like a defined rivalry like in megatron and optimus’ case. her positive relationships with male characters in comparison to someone like megatron, soundwave (the cassettes, cosmos, etc.) and shockwave (optimus as senator shockwave, etc.) are very dysfunctional and very one-sided (at least at first). hell, even bumblebee and starscream in IDW1, despite possibly being the healthiest relationship starscream ever had in the run, was a result of the guilt and grief starscream repressed, and the two still had issues even near the end of the run.

(ah yes. it is very easy for you, a forged bot, to say this to a cold constructed body dysmorphic person.)

it’s even more interesting to note that unlike megatron, soundwave, and shockwave, starscream’s more prominent foils are female characters. this is of course about windblade specifically, though arcee and elita-one can count.

a more simple way i can explain what i’m trying to get at is this: megatron, soundwave, and shockwave have diverse and complex relationships with male characters where starscream’s is usually dysfunctional and borderlines on either hatred or unhealthy attachment on her side, this playing into the masculine figures they are and the other masculine figures they’re with. starscream is more likely to have diverse and (conceptually) complex relationships with female characters where the former three don’t/are few in-between, this playing into the feminine figure she’s perceived as in media.

this is a lot longer than i originally intended it to be, and i don’t want to further make this an incoherent ramble, so here’s a TL:DR and some more parallels i didn’t cover in detail:

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave all have designs that compliment each other, whereas starscream’s feels very out of place and way too colorful in comparison to all three of them, specifically megatron’s.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave are described not only by their personalities but their actions. starscream’s action have very little to do with how she’s perceived, as who she is rather what she’s done is what’s most well known about her.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave are positively portrayed well due to being perceived as masculine. starscream is negatively portrayed and incompetently because she is perceived as feminine. she is feminine in comparison to their masculinity.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave all have various along with positive relationships with other male characters. starscream usually lacks these, and none of her relationships with male characters are ever truly functional or on the same level of respect

starscream’s more complex in concept dynamic with female characters yet seemingly having no romantic interest in any of them plays into her gay coding: her relationships with male characters are messy, though it’s also very easy to perceive as romantic feelings on her side at the very least (wheeljack, metalhawk, bumblebee, blurr, etc.).

soundwave and shockwave were forged, and megatron has a forged spark. starscream, however, was constructed cold.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave have very little vanity nor do they ever truly worry about their frames or looks. starscream canonically has body dysmorphia in her iterations, specifically IDW1.

megatron, soundwave, and shockwave all have certain special abilities that are demonstrated or are specifically said to be unique to them. starscream does not, and it’s suggested that she was not an outlier like skywarp and thundercracker, but instead a generic seeker.

many of megatron’s, soundwave’s, or shockwave’s accomplishments were done specifically by them, and factored by them. starscream’s accomplishments are usually undermined or found out to be factored by someone else, and that it was part of a greater scheme (most notably shockwave’s tampering of starscream being “the chosen one”).

starscream is subject to many transmisogynistic implications and jokes. the former three do not, or are instead further masculinized, especially in comparison to starscream.

didn’t have anywhere specific i was going with this so. yea i think starscream was intentionally designed to not fit in with the other three and her being transfem coded plays into this. :thumbsup:

#long post #mine #yea this was the essay i was talking about. this got over 2000 words i'm sorry.#transformers #starscream #analysis #but thank you to everyone who wanted to hear me ramble about this.#:heart:

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sorry-i-ship-drarry · 3 years

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Simple perfection

| Prompt - Feeling their pulse | this prompt can be read stand alone but comes off with reference from this prompt. Check out if you'd like |

Voldemort had evaporated like ashes in the air, not a single shred of him was left anymore . There were cheers from all across the halls and people were jumping up and down with excitement, contentment, happiness. Some were crying tears of happiness, some reunited with their families, some were kissing and harry was there watching all of it. And then he saw the glimmering eyes towards him, the eyes that held hope after all, the eyes that held respect, eyes that were now filled with love. Wizarding world had won the war, harry had after 7 years fought voldemort and almost died in the process but killed him. They had won the fucking war.

Before Harry could've acknowledged what had happened Hermione had hugged Harry tighter than she had ever before and with tears brimming in his eyes, Ron had too joined along. They laughed and cheered him on, told him how proud they were of him. They loved him and he loved them too, after all they were now his only family left and that thought ached him but just for a little bit he thought, he could be selfish and cry in joy that they had won against Voldemort.

And then his eyes fell upon the blonde sitting in corner with his parents. He threw a vivid smile at Draco and he smiled back. Harry came back and Draco couldn't he more happy ,yet he was terrified.

The days flew a little faster than Harry would have anticipated. In the honour of winning the war , few people had stayed behind at Hogwarts while a few returned home. To harry, Hogwarts was home and he wanted to do anything to make it feel like home again. The reconstruction of Hogwarts started 2 days after the war and harry had suddenly grown very much in popularity. He was the most wanted man in Britain, in a good way.

He was probably walking back from Ms. McGonagall's office when he ran into Draco. Draco merely smiled at harry and walked away. The words shared between them before the war had somehow been forgotten but it has sure developed a relationship between Harry and Draco that wasn't hate anymore. It was only during the last week at Hogwarts when almost everyone had left and only a few had remained. Even Ron and Hermione flew back home and despite their offer to harry, he didn't go along with them. In the last week at Hogwarts, he realised only a few Hufflepuff had remained, ravenclaw's table remained empty , only Draco and few Slytherin's at the Slytherin's table and a few of Gryffindor's who Harry didn't really knew. He had been staring at Draco quite awful lot, he had presumed one of these days Draco would've bought up something about what happened before war but he didn't. Quite frankly Draco looked far more distracted than anything else. It's not like Harry didn't find himself lost in thoughts but Draco looked worse somehow, almost the same how he looked back in 6th year.

It was exactly 5 days before they would've left for home when Harry gathered his courage and went to Slytherin's table. As soon as Draco saw Harry, he flinched at first but calmed down right away.

" how have you been ?" They both asked simultaneously . They smiled at each other before Draco asked him to go first.

" i- I'm not entirely sure. There's a part which feels fine but then there's this part of me which doesn't. They both kinda co-evolve " Harry replied thinking wisely of what to say

" you ?" He added

" i- same as you I suppose " Draco gave him a little smile .

They both fell silent, maybe even enjoying the fact that in the silence they weren't totally alone. The fatality of the war had left them only with each other, it was quite surprising how neither would've imagined life would turn to be this way but the truth was, right now nobody understood them better than each other.

" i- I- you must be wondering why I hadn't came to talk to you after t-that night ?" Draco finally mumbled . Harry shook his head. He understood Draco, he understood the situations they were both in but only a cruel man would be selfish enough to not give the other time for themselves.

" it doesn't feel the same anymore, does it ?" Harry asked. Draco shook his head. Nothing felt the same anymore. Almost as if nothing was real, as if it was a dream they didn't wanted to be awake from.

" Harry-"

" Draco-" they chuckled at the occurrence of the situation twice . This time Harry let Draco talk first.

" I know it's a bit too early to think of this stuff but w- you deserve a little break from all of it. I understand you wanting your time alone but I meant what I said that night. I meant each and every word of it. To be honest I was a-afraid you wouldn't su-survive but now that you have I don't know how to tell you how happy I am that you have "

Harry smiled at him lightly " Draco, you too deserve a break. You were as much as in the war as I was, and yes I do deserve a little break and I'm glad you meant your words that night because then I - I wouldn't had been sitting here. I know we come from a lot of different backgrounds but we're humans right and I would like to continue what we started that night. Maybe stick to our words ?" Harry asked carefully

" I'd like that " Draco smiled after a moment.

" are you sure though ?" Draco asked with concern . Harry nodded.

Harry decided that he didn't wanted to take Draco out on a fancy date but he wanted to make it seem like it meant something. He didn't want any wine or drinks or a fancy restaurant to take him to a date because none of it mattered, all those things didn't make up for how he wanted to treat Draco. He wanted it simple because that's how it is supposed to be now. Simple.

Harry waited outside the Great hall at 4 for Draco who was right on time and they fled off to the destination of the date. It was simple just as Harry had wanted it. It was a small picnic at the cliff side what you could see from the astronomy tower if you looked carefully.

" this is -"

" breathtaking ?"

" yeah " Draco nodded.

They finally sat down at the sheets Harry had sprawled just before he had come to pick up Draco. He had put the statis charm on the food so it was still warm .

" how did you come across this place ?" Draco finally asked as they had settled in

" it was back in 5th year. I used to come here with Hedwig. When supposedly Voldemort had control of my mind I used to feel well deserted- more isolated from anyone, almost angry so i used to just come here and well spend time here. Somedays I even wrote Sirius letter's from here. It bought peace " Harry explained. Draco watched Harry intently as he explained and he thought if he could only Harry in sunlight, he might be able to see his eyes shine differently.

" I'm sorry about si- I mean your godfather"Draco gave him a small smile

" you'll run out of sorry's if you're going to be sorry for people who have died in my life" Harry answered. Draco frowned

" it isn't funny "

" yeah - I just heard it out loud and it sounded insensitive of me " Harry replied and chuckled soon after , Draco joining along.

" I can Only imagine what must it be like for you " Draco consoled

" i- thanks I guess " Harry replied furrowing his eyebrows not sure what was the correct answer to it.

They sat for a few moments in silence until Draco broke it

" it doesn't feel real"

" it doesn't " Harry turned a little over to see draco placing his hand over the side of his neck In a weird way

" what are you doing ?" Harry asked curiously

" checking my pulse if I'm still alive, If all of it is actually real. Seems-"

" too good to be true . I had that thought right before this too " Harry answered for him.

" if you're doing that, check my pulse as well" Harry chuckled. Draco jokingly checked Harry's pulse and soon broke into content laughter.

" I'm glad we did this " Harry said . Draco smiled and nodded .

" I meant what I said that day Harry. I never really hated you but I was just bought up to hate you , you know. Sometimes you watch and learn from people around your house to not do the same thing as they did and sometimes we copy their path. Me being stupid enough copied my parents. Don't think badly of me -"

" I don't Draco and you don't have to explain me anything. It's all in the past now. You've made some questionable choices and quite frankly I wasn't the most pleasant to you either. We both reciprocated that feeling of hating each others Gut " Harry shrugged it off as if it didn't matter and it didn't.

Draco wasn't used to this sort of relationship or this sort of understanding. He was bought up to believe money and power was everything and things like love didn't matter but this was different. Draco wanted to understand everything, even if it takes his whole life.

They watched the sunset together with small conversations but mostly stealing glances at each other and looking forward and maybe eating at some point.

" does it feel different Harry ? Now that it's over ?" Draco finally asked something he had been dreaming about questioning ever since the war had ended.

" i- I don't think it has quite hit me. It feels different, it feels better not being attached with Voldemort anymore but there's so many things I'm still scared off and there's so much to look forward to. It feels different but someday's it doesn't. Before this I knew my life's motive but now, I just don't know " Harry replied thinking twice before choosing his words. Draco watched him in content. This Harry was different, Draco thought. This wasn't the chosen one or the saviour of the world, it was Harry, just Harry and he could spend hours just looking at harry.

" does it feel different to you?" Harry asked him

" I may come off badly but yes. There's some part of me that's happy that won't have to see that Red eyes narcissistic creature but then there's a part of me who knows so much is changing, who knows what I will have to face, things which I haven't yet which is inevitable. It scares me. It feels different but I don't know if it's a good thing or not " Draco told him lost in his thoughts.

" t- that was wise answer. But I don't think much would happen to you. I promise you that. You were just a kid, hell you still are. I know you're afraid they're gonna put you up in azkaban but I'm sure they won't " Harry replied carefully putting his hand over Draco's shoulder. Draco looked at harry but didn't say anything.

" you fought valiantly though " Draco said

" you sounded like Voldemort just now" Harry chuckled

" well can you blame. That man breathed around my neck " Draco chuckled and in a childish way they broke into laughter. And they laughed until their breath ran out.

And then they talked and no longer In an uncomfortable sort of way but in a nice causal way. Things about plans after this, or what was their favourite desert despite the fact they already knew that, or about which place would they like to visit. They talked about everything and nothing and this was their sort of perfect and they liked it.

It was simple but it was perfect because it was them.

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Day 4- the missing piece

Day 6 - pinned

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